Host Tim Gordon Keeps It Reel While Covering Tinseltown’s A-List Set

What kind of person boasts that he spends the majority of each working day watching movies—and has seen more than 10,000 of them in the process? A person like Tim Gordon. As president of the Washington, D.C., Film Critics Association, a movie reviewer for local PBS affiliate WETA-TV, and host of BlogTalkRadio’s Keeping It Reel, Tim is always game to screen flicks of any caliber. Except, of course, when chatting with Hollywood powerhouses like Tyler Perry. Confabs like that happen during the balance of his working day, while he and his correspondents are attending junkets for such flicks as Tyler’s For Colored Girls, Angelina Jolie’s The Tourist or Denzel Washington’s Unstoppable. And on that cinematic note, it’s time to go live to our nation’s capital for a chat with this week’s SoundBits subject, aka Film Gordon…

Give us a 15-second pitch for your show—why should listeners tune in?

If you love talking film, if you love good conversation, if you love funky music and if you love havin’ a whole lot of fun, we’ve got all that plus a Cineplexful of reel celebrities weighing in on their latest flicks.

Cinematic addict—and lovin’ it!

Tell us two things listeners would be surprised to learn about you?

In addition to the passion I have for the power of movies, I’m a huge sports—as well as an avid collector of trading cards. I also love politics, literature and the culinary arts.

Who’s your broadcasting hero?

Since I model my show on late-night talk shows, my inspirations are of course the king himself, Johnny Carson, as well as Arsenio Hall. I’m taken, as well, by the interviewing style of Today show host Matt Lauer.

If you could book any person on earth as a guest on your show, who would it be and why?

I’d love to have a conversation with Sidney Poitier. Largely responsible for my interest in films from an early age, he is literally the first leading man of color in Hollywood history and every black actor owes him a debt.

As we speak, what are you wearing?

Since I’m in my home studio, a bathrobe, a pair of pajamas and my comfy furry moccasins.

What’s the strangest thing you’ve ever done while in the middle of hosting your show?

On my second-ever show, which fell around Thanksgiving 2009, I couldn’t get an Internet connection at home one night, so I had to host my show from my sister’s bedroom—while she was in bed with her husband! They watched late-night TV and me for an hour. Let’s just say that there wasn’t a lot of energy that week. But there but there was a whole lot of whispering.